


Abattoir

by ProvenTitan



Series: Abattoir [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Also Very Not Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Future Alternate School Fic, Goblet of Fire AU, Hate Speech, Hogwarts Fourth Year, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, I Identify Strongly With Cedric, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Off-screen Relationship(s), Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Slow Updates, lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-08 02:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10375506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProvenTitan/pseuds/ProvenTitan
Summary: Or, "Just Because You Lived In A Cupboard For Ten Years, Harry, Doesn't Mean You Have To Stay In The Closet".At the start of Harry's Fourth Year at Hogwarts, there's a lot on his mind. Sirius. The Quidditch World Cup. The Triwizard Tournament. Professor Moody. But being a fourth-year also means being fourteen, which can come with its own variety of discoveries and problems. When Harry discovers Wizarding attitudes to homosexuality, it leads to a gain of new friends, a loss of old ones, and maybe even the abandonment of Hogwarts itself.(there's a lot of fics where Ron is an ignorant, prejudice homophobe, so i kind of wanted to turn that idea on its head. it evolved.)





	1. On a warm, sunny day

**Author's Note:**

> I have plans for this fic to a) have a sequel o_O and b) for that sequel to be an alternate school fic.  
> That being said, you should be able to read the fics seperately, if you're not into AU school fics (or really into them).

 

 

Harry gazed out at the bright blue sky of Hogwarts, the balmy day unrecognisable for early October. It was not often in Scotland that there were days like this, where the sun beat down fiercely, and the waves of the lake were the only respite in sight. The Sunday afternoon was a blessing; after getting back into the swing of school after being away for several weeks, it was the perfect time for the professors to pile on the homework.

 

Harry thought back to his previous year, and the discoveries he had made. This time last year had been very different, and not only weather wise, although perhaps that was due to the Dementors. It almost seemed like this year, Hogwarts was trying to make up for the previous October’s cold drizzle and foul temperatures.

 

Hermione had a book balanced in her lap, and habitually pushed an errant curl behind her ear, only for it to fall back into her face whenever she turned a page. He noted the title of her book as something to do with Arithmancy, the gold-plated wheel-looking symbol on the book’s cover catching the light and dazzling him for a second. He blinked back sharply and rubbed his eye under his glasses, only making it worse. When he looked up, Ron gave a bark of laughter at the wonky glasses on Harry’s nose and smears of grass around his left eye.

 

Laughing, Harry pulled his glasses off and rubbed furiously with his sleeve, ignoring Hermione’s tutting. The waves of the Great Lake in the background gave entirely no energy to the trio. This was very much a day for relaxing.

 

Shame no-one else seemed to think so.

 

There was a violent splash, water sprayed over the group, and Hermione and Ron cried out, the latter in shock, the former in despair. Frantically, Hermione searched for her wand to cast a drying spell over the water-speckled book. It was strange, Harry mused, completely unperturbed by the water splash, that despite how knowledgeable and intelligent Hermione was, she tended to panic very easily. He imagined it would be something that she would develop as she grew older, the ability not only to plan for exceptional circumstances, but to also to be more swift and reactive in her decisions.

 

The grass blew gently over Harry’s nose as he lay sprawled in the grass, the sounds of Fred, George, and Ron bellowing at each other in the shallow waves and Hermione muttering 'wand, wand, wand', as she searched the pockets of her robes, oblivious to the wand laying as an impromptu bookmark in the tome in front of her.

 

Harry sat and stretched, his restlessness getting the better of him. He plucked the wand from the book and passed it under Hermione’s nose before heading to the shore, his feet taking him past Ron and the twins with no more than a wave and a head tip. He cast a soft Aguamenti over his scalp, letting the cool water soak his hair and face. It was very hot today. He aimed for the cool Entrance Hall of Hogwarts, his bare feet slapping against the smooth stone. Oh, he’d forgotten to grab his shoes. They were probably still laying by Hermione. Maybe the twins had got a hold of them, and were filling them full of weeds and other obscure items from the lake. Ron would be valiantly trying to grab them, and was probably getting his head dunked in the lake. Repeatedly.

 

Still, he was trying, though the more Harry thought about it, it was probably the chance to fight the twins that was driving him more than his defense of Harry. He shook his head quickly. Ron was a good friend, a fair friend. _Fair-weather friend,_ his traitorous mind whispered.

 

The doors of the Great Hall passed him by as he continued his slow meander of the corridors. It wasn’t often that he got to do this anymore; he’d had more spare time in his second year when he was being ostracised by half the school to explore and discover parts of the school he’d not known about. The Marauder’s Map _had_ been invaluable since last year, but at the same time, it had been rewarding to find parts of the school himself. More often than not, he’d gotten himself lost on purpose, wandering the halls for hours before he consented to find himself on the map. Unbeknownst to him, a part of his mind had been marking the paths he had taken, evaluating them for efficiency and speed for the next time he needed to get somewhere in a hurry.

 

As such, he vaguely recognised the corridor he was as being somewhere between the third and fourth floors, and that if he continued in a straight line then headed left, he would get to an old mosaic of that led to the Hospital wing, from which he could take the tapestry of Kentess Monarch to the second floor and come out at the grand staircase. However, if he went forward and right… he had no idea what he might find. It might be more walls, maybe a sconce. Knowing Hogwarts like he did though, it might not be. He had a good feeling about this.

 

Harry made his way across the dimly lit corridor, his hand held out in front so he wouldn’t bump into anything.

 

He could hear a noise faintly, a kind of soft breathy panting. Was there an animal here? Or a person?

 

Harry hesitated in the gloom, his mind stuttering to a halt. He was suddenly nervous that he was going to stumble upon something he didn’t want to see. He’d heard Seamus and Dean complaining enough times in their dorm that the two were constantly being interrupted in broom closets and empty classrooms when they ran off to snog. He really didn’t want to be _that_ guy.

 

As he crept closer, the quiet noise cut off sharply, and he stopped still.

 

“H-Hey, is… is anyone there?” Harry called softly. “Hello?”

 

There was a short silence.

 

“Ah, am I interrupting? Oh no, I’m sorry…” He took two quick steps backwards, not wanting to see any poor couple caught _in flagrante delicto,_ then spun on his heels to walk away. There was a sudden, sharp noise behind him, like something falling over, and a person’s voice came from behind Harry. It was deep, and probably male, but muffled like it was behind a door. Harry had an awful mental image of Seamus and Dean caught in a compromising position behind the door of a broom closet and shook his head violently to rid the thought.

 

“Uh, no! I… I wasn’t really doing anything…!” The voice, whilst deep, cracked with nervousness. Harry raised a disbelieving eyebrow at the wall in front of him. He wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t left yet, but he felt like he was waiting for something. And then, from behind him, footsteps. He turned to look.

 

The man – for he looked quite mature – was tall and broad. His large hands were raised in front of him, and his face was red. His robes proclaimed him a Hufflepuff, and suddenly, Harry recognised the half-shadowed features. It was Cedric Diggory, who he’d played and lost against last year, and who he’d met only a couple of weeks ago on the way to the Quidditch World Cup.

 

“C-Cedric?”

 

“Wait, who…?” Cedric came a little more out of the gloom, his eyes squinting in the dark. “Harry?”

 

“Are you, uh… busy?” Harry stuttered, his eyes darting everywhere but Cedric’s disheveled form, “I was just wandering around, I didn’t mean to… disturb you.”

 

“Ah, no!” Cedric’s eyes shot open and his face screwed up in embarrassment, “No, no, no, Harry, that’s not, err, not what it looked like, it was… I… he just… misunderstood…”

 

“He?” Harry was suddenly confused. Was this Cedric trying to throw him off? He hadn’t seen or heard anyone else in the corridor, and no-one had run past him. “Was someone else up here?”

 

Cedric’s hands slowly lowered and laid themselves across his eyes. He scrubbed furiously at his face before locking his fingers together and wiping them up his forehead, pushing his hair up and away from his eyes so he looked slightly deranged. Harry shifted nervously.

 

“When…” Cedric’s voice was weak and hoarse, “when did you get up here…?”

 

“Only a couple of minutes ago!” Harry stammered hastily, trying to reassure the guy, “Really!”

 

With those words, Cedric’s eyes shut tight and he groaned deeply, stumbling to the closest wall and sliding down against it. He half-collapsed into a heap, knees bent up to his chest, his hands still covering most of his furiously red face from Harry’s view. Harry got the feeling those were not the words Cedric had wanted to hear.

 

“Cedric…?” Harry took a short step towards the crumpled figure, hand hesitantly outstretched. He flinched back a little when Cedric’s hands uncovered his mortified expression, his eyes tight with apology. They widened and took in Harry’s flinch, before softening. Cedric unfurled himself with careful movements, before flashing a sincerely apologetic smile and patting the wall next to him.

 

“It’s okay, Harry. Come on. I owe you an explanation.”

 

 


	2. In a cold, dimly-lit corridor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy balls does this mean i've actually got a fic with more than one chapter *screech*  
> updates mate  
> they'reacomin

The cold of the stone flags seeped through Harry’s robes as he settled down next to Cedric.

“You don’t owe me anything-”

“No, I do. And, I’m sorry, but it may well help me to get this out, if you can sit through my waffling.”

“I don’t mind.” And Harry didn’t, really. He’d come inside looking for something to occupy his time, and this was as good as anything. He liked Cedric; the Hufflepuff had been kind to him, quietly understanding and unobtrusive. He was probably the only person he could remember who hadn’t assumed him to be the Boy-Who-Lived before anything else. Maybe, it was the way they had met, on the Quidditch pitch, maybe it was the defence of him to his father before the World Cup that summer, but Cedric seemed like the kind of guy that if he needed to talk to somebody, Harry was happy to oblige. He was also the only boy he remembered as having grey eyes.

When he remarked as such, Cedric gave a bark of incredulous laughter that made Harry’s face flush.

“No, Harry. Thank you,” Cedric said laughing, aforementioned eyes shining, “I wasn’t really expecting that, but cheers. I actually get them from my mum.”

“Really?” Harry smiled, thinking of a sandy-haired, grey-eyed lady hugging the tall Hufflepuff around the waist at summers or Christmas. “People say I got my eyes from my mum, too.”

Immediately, Harry looked away, cursing himself. What a way to kill the mood, talking about his dead mum. He hunched his shoulders defensively, expecting the onslaught of pity any second, but instead a warm arm wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him into the side of the tall seventh-year. He looked up, confused, and Cedric’s warm, grey eyes looked down. There was no pity, or at least, it wasn’t all pity. There was genuine compassion and a warm, sweet feeling like a log fire with blankets.  
“You say something like that, and it makes this so much easier, because I don’t think anything is quite as adorable as the image of a tiny you and your mum with matching bright green eyes.”

No-one had ever said anything like that before to Harry. It was always pity, sorrow, ‘I wish you could have known her’, ‘She was a wonderful person’. Anecdotes from those people who had far more time with her than he ever did. But Cedric, somehow, had managed to remind him of the time he did have with her, even if he himself couldn’t remember it. He knew that during the year between his birth and his parents’ death, he must have been the most loved, wanted, cared-for baby that had ever existed, but by reminding him of that, Cedric had unwittingly shown him the same thoughtfulness that had been so lacking so far in his life.

He burrowed further into Cedric’s side, nosing into the folds of his robes in content. Cedric gave a soft laugh and tugged his cloak further around Harry’s slumped form, before leaning his head back against the wall and starting to talk.

“Sometimes, Harry,” he began, “I feel like I should have been a Ravenclaw.” Harry raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. That wasn’t quite the opening statement he’d expected.

“My mum was a Ravenclaw, you know. I always felt I was more like her. But I ended up in Hufflepuff, which meant I was nice.” Cedric sneered the last word, looking for a moment more like a Slytherin than anything else. “I do fit well in Hufflepuff, I have lots of friends and I’m on the Quidditch team, but… occasionally I catch myself overanalysing something, or procrastinating on a deadline, or just generally not wanting to go out and talk to people. And then I think, ‘I shouldn’t be feeling like that. Why am I?”

Cedric sighed. “I get so depressed sometimes. When I think about it too much. I feel like no-one understands me, and then I get even more depressed and annoyed because wow, I suddenly sound like every teenager ever, how unique, ‘poor me’.” His tone was biting and cold, full of self-deprecation. It made Harry tense up. “I get this guilt, like I shouldn’t be thinking what I am thinking, and then my mind gets so confused because I can’t help it, but I feel so aware of what I’m thinking that I end up hating myself.”

Cedric gave a bitter laugh, “Even that made my cringe. Who says that? I’m not some poor, disadvantaged person, there are people who have much more to worry about than me. I grew up with a good family, a great mum, a supportive dad. I have friends, I have hobbies. I’m on track for a good career. So why do I still feel like a disappointment? Why? And why do I hate thinking like that? Why do I think like that? I’m sure that I’m not supposed to, doesn’t everyone else just live in blissful ignorance of their own thoughts? _Merlin.”_

The silence rang in the cold corridor, the heated, harried words fading. “I think about the problems that everyone else goes through. I know people who self-harm, who are bulimic or anorexic, I know people who’ve attempted suicide, or had awful childhoods, or miscarried at a young age, or lived with mental health conditions all their lives. And then I look at me. And I just feel like a failure, because I’m so down on myself when I really shouldn’t be, because _what have I got to feel sorry about?!”_

“It’s pointless. People shouldn’t waste their time on me. I’m the one that listens to everyone else’s crap, that’s what I do. I try and find solutions or I just listen, but… every time I feel like it’s too much, that I’m the one who needs to talk it out, I stop myself. Because I’m fine. I’m just fine. That’s my favourite phrase.”

Cedric, who had been staring out at the gloomy corridor all this time, took a deep breath and glanced at Harry. He dreaded what he’d see. Pity? Concern? Hatred? The thought made his gut clench. He shouldn’t be pitied, there was no point. If Harry was concerned about him, then it was a waste, because it wasn’t like Cedric was going to do anything. He was too much of a coward. There was no point.

And if Harry hated him… well. He supposed he could understand that.

“Oh, Cedric…”

And suddenly, there were arms around Cedric’s neck and warmth against his front. He closed his eyes and smiled wryly, wrapping his arms around Harry. “It’s fine, Harry, honestly! It’s not that bad, I’m not, you know, going to actually do anything. My stupid brain won’t let me.”

“That doesn’t make you okay, Cedric.” Harry replied, pulling away from where his head was buried in Cedric’s neck. He looked straight into the eyes of the other boy. “You’re still thinking about it. And if you’re thinking about it, that’s a step closer to actually doing it, even if you’re not there yet.”

Cedric paused, his mouth parted slightly. For some reason… that had never occurred to him before.

“But… I’m okay.” He protested, weakly even to his own ears, yet somehow, he needed to.

“No-one’s totally okay, Cedric. Not even you.”

And with that, he felt a wall inside him crumble; the Hufflepuff Hero ‘can-do-no-wrong’ Cedric began to splinter and he felt so vulnerable that he held onto Harry as though his body would fly apart.

They sat in silence for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have plans to also update my undertale fic A Human's Trait  
> (and possible post a couple more WiPs bc no-one can stop me ahahaha)  
> stay tuned friends


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